Black Is the Color Of Death
by RoboMonkey2012
Summary: Legend tells of a city known as Death City, where nightmares run supreme and humans with lost or broken souls reside away from the Overworld. Blood runs throughout the cobblestoned streets thick as fear and distrust. Maka has stumbled into the infamous city, but can she survive and escape before she's swallowed, too? Rated M for language and violence, and because I'm paranoid.
1. Prologue

Black Is the Color Of Death

By RoboMonkey2012

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Prologue

There Is No Sun In Death City

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In the city there were two things that happened in the sky: Rain and darkness. There was no sun.

The city's streets were long, narrow, and winding. Alleyways between the stoney buildings told tales of terror and fear and death, much like the rest of the city.

The gutters of the city always held liquid. Sometimes fresh, sometimes stale, blood ran in miniature rivers down the sides of the cobblestoned roads. Gunshots and screams echo off the tall buildings and in the nightmares of the citizens.

There is no sun in Death City.

Death City is a myth, some say. A children's tale of horror.

It isn't.

Death City is very, very real, and it is the place where nightmares reside.

No one knows how to get there.

That is because those who try wind up dead or insane.

When one becomes lost enough, they slowly find their way towards Death City.

Souls that are broken, that wish to more than anything leave the waking world forever, that are plagued by nightmares of the places they leave behind, will eventually see Death City.

This is the reason the city is called "Death City."

No one has ever survived a visit.

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**Author's Notes**

**Screw the poll, no one's voting! So I'm going to do all of them. Just not at the same time.**

**I'd had yet to try the horror genre, so, well, here. I've had trouble making my stories seem truly ominous or terrifying, so I guess you'd call this practice...?**

**Anyway, leave a review to tell me what you think!**

**-Monkey out.**


	2. Chapter 1

Black Is the Color Of Death

By RoboMonkey2012

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Chapter 1

Darkness Falling

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When Maka came upon the wall of the city, the sky was inky-black, with no starlight. No light at all but the huge yellow crescent in the sky, a moon with a single creepy black eye with a yellow ring in the center around a soulless black pupil, a long, pointed nose, and an eerily grinning mouth full of teeth, a steady stream of blood leaking out of its mouth, and the steady flickering light of the lampposts every ten feet along the winding cobblestone roads.

Maka could have sworn the gigantic wrought-iron gates had not been there a few seconds ago. In the dim light of lampposts flanking its sides, Maka could see a minimalist skull was sculpted from bent iron bars, the separation of the gate cutting it perfectly down the middle.

Under her boots were cobblestones, small, yellow stalks of grass sprouting from in between the stones, and smattered with a dark brown substance, littered with torn college diplomas, broken toys, and bent weapons from every era in history; broken dreams of all those who had passed the gates.

Maka stared up at the gates. There were many emotions going through her head; terror, curiosity. Adrenaline coursed through her veins; her heart making a steady _ka-thump, ka-thump_ in her chest. Her lungs moved air in and out, in and out, as she curled and uncurled her fingers.

"Well? Hurry up, you!"

Maka's head and body whirled around, her heart rate jumping as a result of both the adrenaline and the surprise.

A tall boy stood behind her, wearing a nice suit with a skull brooch at his high collar. His long nose turned up at her and his golden eyes looked down in a look of clear disapproval. His two feet in sharp, shiny dress shoes were pointed at an exact ninety degree angle to each other, one tap-tap-tapping on the cobblestone impatiently, and his arms were crossed as a finger tapped his upper arm.

"Some of us don't have all hour, you know," he said crossly. "I have better things to do than wait for an indecisive lost soul to open the gates!"

"Kid, don't be rude."

A girl shimmered into existence beside the boy, her arms in a much more informal position with one hanging by her side and the other on her hip. Silver bracelets clattered about her wrists when she moved, brushing the silky fabric of her ankle-length black dress and making the fabric shimmer with the colors of red, violet, and silver as if the gown was woven with gems.

Maka just stared, stunned.

"You and your precious schedule," the girl sighed, one long, slender finger tipped in a ruby-red sharp fingernail making a circle in the air in a "not-very-amused-nor-excited" fashion.. "Give the soul some time, this is probably very new to her."

The boy rolls his eyes and his foot taps faster. "Fine then, but she still needs to hurry up!"

Maka blinks as the girl smiles at her encouragingly and the boy nods.

One booted foot takes a step forwards towards the skull gates. Then another, and soon she's standing right up next to them.

She curls her fingers into fists and takes a deep breath, banishing the fear from her body.

"My name is Maka Albarn," she says, her voice surging with strength and sureness. The words come to her out of thin air. "My soul is lost, my heart is broken. My strength is gone, my mind is hurt. _Civitatem Mors_, City of Death, grant me access and heal me!"

After Maka is done, the gates swing open. The girl and the boy vanish in swirls of black petals. Rose petals, maybe?

Maka steps forward past the huge gates, her heart continuing its reassuring _ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump_ in her chest.

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**Author's Notes:**

**I am very pleased with how this chapter turned out. Just the right amount of foreboding, for my tastes at least.  
*Civitatem Mors is Latin. It means "City of Death." You can see why I chose it for this story. Latin kind of adds a mysterious element, doesn't it?  
Anyway, review please, and I'll give you a browkie!**


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